(Re-) Building the confidence

The one thing that has become apparent since I started writing about my “progress” with my fitness over the summer is that the confidence I used to have in being able to “turn up and run” has been hugely impacted, especially in the last year. I think it’s the combination of not having had a consistent flow within my running for so long coupled with the fear that I might not actually be able to continue running in the future.

Confidence isn’t a given

I can see now there was a huge amount of unnecessary pessimism in there, but it serves to highlight really that, no matter where someone is within their running life, there can be a fragility regardless of experience. For me, the fear of not being able to run, and potentially less able to mitigate dealing with my own mental health was a big concern. And whilst my original plans of doing lots of mad running adventures in retirement may have to be significantly curtailed, it doesn’t actually mean that they are gone completely.

After a large running week, I decided that I didn’t want to risk overloading things. My foot has behaved reasonably over the summer, but I don’t want to push it. Hence my week of running was only done within coached and led sessions. The coached session was itself strength and conditioning (something I know I need to really focus on) and the two Lyme runs were short, at 3.8 miles and 3 miles respectively. In fact the latter one was predominantly a walk as I was supporting one of the group who wasn’t moving much faster than my walking pace.

But it should be promoted

One of the things I really emphasise within Lyme Runners is that it’s there to cover all abilities. As long as people are making the effort, we will be there to support them. Over the years I’ve heard of situations from other clubs whereby people have been excluded, belittled and shunned because they ‘don’t fit’. And I understand it can be difficult when there’s a huge range in ability; I see this within my own group. My feeling however is always that how would those people complaining or causing the ill-feeling, feel if they were themselves being treated like that?

In the end of the week I realised that I’d inadvertently not done anything running wise for myself. Which definitely wasn’t the intention. So come the weekend I decided it was time to do another long run, but this time choose a lumpier route, to more simulate what a half-marathon would actually be like. As per usual it was interspersed with jobs all over the borough and as such the moving time compared to the overall time was significantly different. But that aside I felt that the running was comfortable enough to be representative of one continuous effort (that’s subjective of course!). But 14 miles, due to a couple of jobs near home at the end, in 1h56m represented something slightly faster than the pace of the half-marathon a week earlier.

This was all about building some confidence. Not necessarily with respect to pace, just  to know that should I decide to tackle a half-marathon that the distance is attainable.

Total weekly mileage was 20.8 miles.

Of course with having had a low-effort week, I was conscious that I needed to step things up a notch. Interestingly I poked around within my Garmin to look at the week ahead of workouts it was suggesting, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it wanted some runs long-enough to actually be beneficial to training for a half-marathon. Later in the week of course!

Another week another ‘meh’ option from the watch!

Because the Monday run was, of course, a 50 minute low-effort run (predictable?). I had a meeting in the early afternoon and figured that I could run there and run back, and that would fulfil the brief sufficiently. The route was indirect and had a bit of undulation without being actually hilly, and by the time I finished it worked out at about 6.3 miles and was very comfortable.

I was coaching in the evening and whilst I wasn’t really doing much running myself I eventually switched on my Garmin and recorded another 2 miles of zigzagging on a football pitch, at dusk, in a very atmospheric mist!

We were suddenly treated to a last gasp of summer and on the Tuesday I thought we really needed to get up into the hills with Lyme Runners. I’d put off a request a couple of weeks ago to head up to Black Rocks, following several days of heavy rain. But I thought this might be our opportunity. And it was grand, even if I twice stopped and forgot to restart my Garmin…….. So the recorded 6 miles should probably have been closer to 7, but the missed bits were all downhill sections so at least it caught all the climbing!

Risking the sprints…..

Wednesday called for a speed session; I’d not done one in a fortnight and really was feeling it necessary. But I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. Garmin had suggested a sprint session which I wasn’t keen on as last time I picked up a couple of niggles as a result. But in the end I couldn’t come up with anything better, so sprints it was:

  • 15 mins warm-up
  • 3x (15s sprint with 3 min rest in between)
  • 5 mins recovery run
  • 3x (15s sprint with 3 min rest in between)
  • 5 mins recovery run
  • 3x (15s sprint with 3 min rest in between)
  • 10 minutes cool down

It’s certainly a session where I’m out of my comfort zone. I don’t sprint for anyone usually. Garmin included target paces but to be honest it was a case of  going all out and hoping the pace was right. Total mileage worked out at 5.2 miles according to Garmin, which was further than I expected, although I did jog up and down during my rest recoveries so that will have added a bit.

I survived although my bad foot was a bit grouchy afterwards. Top end speed work can really work the lower calf muscles and thus the heel area can complain as a result (I did something to my soleus muscle years ago during a track session so was mindful that this could be an issue).

Come Thursday for the second of the weekly Lyme Runners sessions, I was a bit achey in the heel, but it seemed to be moving OK. Like the previous week, it was a shorter run at 3.9 miles and again had plenty of walking pace as well as some running.

I took my slightly-antagonised foot off to my regular physio appointment and it seemed that it wasn’t unduly upset. An interesting discussion about the fact that my condition has been with me all my adult life. Haglunds deformations are a bit of an unknown in terms of exactly why and how, but it appears that they can be triggered by a rapid growth spurt which is something I did experience as a teenager. It’s not the first time I’ve been made aware of this but at least it’s confirmation that this condition isn’t something that is new to me.

My final run of the week was something of a piecemeal affair, combining letting in a visiting band of church bell ringers to my local tower with going to various jobs in different directions around the area. It was supposed to be at a nice easy pace but it did get pushed from time to time, ended up somewhere in no-mans land with a total of 9 miles covered.

Total weekly mileage was 26.6 miles.

Be the first to comment on "(Re-) Building the confidence"

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

error: Content is protected !!